Viral internet character Tung Tung Tung Sahur was created in 2025 by an Indonesian teen who goes by the username Noxa, using OpenAI’s image-generation tool. Illustration: Guardian Design View image in fullscreen Viral internet character Tung Tung Tung Sahur was created in 2025 by an Indonesian teen who goes by the username Noxa, using OpenAI’s image-generation tool. Illustration: Guardian Design Technology Who owns ‘brain rot’? Inside the international legal drama over a beloved meme Copyright law in the US only applies to human-made creations, but AI characters like Tung Tung Tung Sahur are challenging that
Prefer the Guardian on Google O ne of the most beloved characters in an absurdist genre of online video content has become the center of an international legal battle that could determine where human creativity ends and artificial intelligence begins.
Tung Tung Tung Sahur, also known as Triple T, was created in 2025 by an Indonesian teen who goes by the username Noxa, using OpenAI’s image-generation tool. Based on a kentongan – a type of drum used to wake south-east Asian Muslims for their pre-dawn meal during Ramadan – the character is an anthropomorphized version of the instrument with a broad smile and a vacant stare. He sits under the umbrella of “Italian brain rot” internet videos.
Since his creation, Triple T has become a global sensation: YouTube and TikTok host dozens of videos with hundreds of millions of views starring the character. People dress like Triple T at cosplay conventions and lovingly create fan art and animations of the stick-like creature, and his likeness appears on plushies, perfume and stickers.
The character has generated a great deal of money and stands to create much more – he will soon be joining Fortnite as a skin. But who should benefit from this virality?
That question is at the heart of a lawsuit filed in the US district court’s northern district of California, where a games company is suing the French creative agency Mementum, which represents Noxa, over the right to use Triple T as a character in a popular Roblox game.
Eben Jeda, co-founder of Mementum Lab, said he started the agency with the goal of modernizing economic infrastructure around internet-native works, the creators of which are often completely cut out of any resulting profit.
“Brain rot is one of the first highly visible manifestations of a much larger transformation: internet native creativity can now become global almost instantly, while the people who originate it can remain economically invisible,” he said.
Opponents argue no one person should own a meme whose ultimate value has been amplified by the online collective. Fabian Mosele, a self-described “Italian brain rot expert” who has made several Tung Tung Tung Sahur videos, said they see brain rot as collectively owned.
“There are a ton of creators who made these characters come to life,” Mosele said. “Before, they were really just images. Having been part of making the virality of these characters, to gatekeep it to the original prompter of this character doesn’t seem right.”
Tung Tung Tung Sahur is one of many characters that have emerged as part of the Italian brain rot genre of meme – a universe of strange, AI-generated characters beloved by generation Alpha and younger members of gen Z. These include the likes of Ballerina Cappuccina (a ballet dancer with a coffee cup for a head), Tralalero Tralala (a shark wearing sneakers), and a variety of other intentionally…